Flow

Lately, I’ve become obsessed with writing, absolutely obsessed.  Every free moment is spent thinking about what I want to say and how I want to say it.

  

I used to write, but nothing like these articles or essays or whatever it is I’m writing.  During periods of unemployment, I’ve started two novels and a screenplay, and yet right now, even as obsessed as I am, I have no desire to finish them.  I thought of it as a job at the time.  If I wasn’t employed, I had to do something between those hours, so I may as well write a novel.  I don’t set small goals.

 

When I’m employed, my brain focuses 150% on the job, whatever job it is, and by the time I get home at night, I am drained.  I have no brain power left.  My brain and my body agree to turn way down.  We play computer games and watch TV, and we don’t think.  I had no grand ideas, no “better write that down before I forget” moments, so really no reason to write.

 

I do write claims manuals and business documents, and now that I’ve finally gotten back to creative writing, I can’t seem to shake this formal style I’ve got going on here.  My older stuff was never this formal, this tighta**ed.  At least it had that going for it.

 

I had a routine that rarely varied.  Wake up, shower, feed the cat, go to work, run errands, come home, change clothes, do house chores, veg, read, sleep, then start all over again.  The computer and TV were on constantly unless I was reading.  I hunted down computer games to keep my brain vegged properly.

 

And then, about a month ago, I opened an e-mail and nothing has been the same since.  Just a simple question, but it started a conversation, which led to an invitation into his faery tale world, literally.  I entered cautiously, and left filled.  I was on fire!  I went to bed with so many thoughts crowding my head that I hardly slept.  When I came home the next evening, I started writing and haven’t stopped.

 

I have no routine anymore.  Now, I start writing and forget to eat.  I used to think that you had to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat, it’s almost like breathing.  Well, I’m apparently now a special kind of stupid.  Routine dinner time passes, the stomach gurgles, but I just have to finish this thought.  Two hours later, it’s too late for a meal, so dinner ends up being an orange or a handful of cookies to stop the pang so I can get back to the writing.

 

The TV gets turned on for the news and weather only, if I remember.  Everything else is recording and I’ll watch it someday, hopefully before the next season or the DVR fills up.  The car radio has been off for over a week.  Besides Facebook Scrabble, I haven’t played a computer game in weeks.  My poor Kindle is used to at least three hours of attention a day, and now I rarely pick her up.  I’m writing up until bedtime, and sometimes even later.

 

My brain is racing constantly with what I want to say.  I rush through the day and my errands so I can come home and write it down.  It’s a constant barrage of words and ideas and thoughts, and I can’t get to the computer fast enough.

 

And a single word, like balance or flow, and I’m off, words flying from my fingers.  But there is no nice, even flow for me, not even close.  Creative Laura starts with a purge of single words, fragmented sentences, random thoughts, that have no pattern and make no sense.  My own literal brain vomit.

 

The first hour or so is filled with the frantic purging, and then it just stops.  I stare at the whiteness for a minute or two, just to be sure.  Then I get up, go to the bathroom, refill my water, play with the cat, light a cigarette, and start the hard work.

 

I go back to the top and Creative Laura starts trying to decipher what she meant by that.  She’ll expand on this piece, totally delete that piece, rewrite this other piece from a different angle.  And all the while, Tight-A** Business Laura is correcting punctuation, reorganizing paragraphs, editing, re-editing, can’t keep her damn hands still.

   

When I reach the bottom, I go back to the top and start again.  Rewrite, expand, delete, change, correct.  I can re-write a single paragraph a dozen different ways, which makes it all the harder to figure out which one to keep.  A dozen times or more, I start at the top and work my way down.

 

I use too many words because I’m afraid what I want to express won’t get across, so I flesh it out and fluff it up and give it way more than it needs.  I want to be clear, no questions.  More rewrites, more changes.

Of the original purge, I keep barely 1%.  Somehow, it changes and twists and turns into something different than my original intent.  It starts somewhere in all the rewrites and edits, and it dribbles on down to infect the rest of the piece.

 

Then, just when I begin to doubt if this is ever going to come together into anything more than just a pile of vomit, I start from the top again and it’s almost brand new, but it works, and I like it, and why didn’t I think of that?  Creative Laura and Tight-A** Business Laura agree that they just might have something here.  It now makes some kind of sense, it has a flow.

 

Of course, Tight-A** Business Laura insists on a few more passes for final corrections, polish.  I allow her one, then it has to leave my hands.  If I read it again, there will be no stopping the girls, and many hours later, it will have turned into yet a totally different piece.

 

So here’s the latest edition of Laura’s Brain Vomit, hope it doesn’t make you hurl.

 

And clap if you believe in faeries.  I know I do.